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Cellared in BC Should be Clarified

Plonk isn’t a bad thing: it outsells premium wine 10:1 worldwide. Using cheaper imported grapes keeps jobs in Canada. I have been known to buy it on occasion. (I tell the clerk that it is for a friend.) But consumers shouldn’t be fooled into thinking they are buying BC grapes. BC wine grapes are expensive. Labour costs are higher. Yields are kept low. Vineyards are too small for industrial grape growing: Gallo has more vineyard acreage than all growers in BC combined. We don’t have the economies of scale: Yellowtail sells more wine in six weeks than do all BC producers in a year. “Cellared in Canada” wine, made from wine juice shipped from who knows where, can compete by price, but very seldom use BC grapes—just too expensive. And that’s good. Our deficiencies in producing cheap grapes allow our wineries to produce great grapes. But it is deceptive to use labelling laws that fool consumers into thinking that they are buying BC grapes.